“Being a judge for the play competition was an amazing experience. Huge congratulations to the Hands Up Project for getting so much involvement and enthusiasm for drama from so many different schools in Palestine.”

Ken Wilson, ELT author and founding member of the English Teaching Theatre

‘Toothbrush and other plays’ is a collection of 30 of the best 5 minute plays that were created and performed by Palestinian young people as part of the 2018 Hands Up Project playwriting competition. It contains a foreword by Scott Thornbury, a preface by Matthias Smale, the director of UNRWA Gaza, and an introduction by Nick Bilbrough.

The plays are organised into four themed chapters; Family, School, Freedom and Imagination, and are suitable to be read and/or performed by learners of English anywhere in the world. Each play includes a youtube link with a video of the performance by the actors. There are also notes from the teacher about how each play was made and how the learners benefitted from the experience. The books have already been donated to each of the 150 Palestinian children who have a play published in it.

The cast of “Rosa Parks’ receiving their books in an UNRWA school in Beit Laquiya, Gaza

Welcome to Earth and other Plays

“The plays in this book are written by young people who care, and they are to be performed by young people who dare. They dare to put their bodies on the line and speak out, and they dare to express themselves and give it a go. They dare to reclaim theatre and take it back to its roots”

‘Welcome to Earth and other plays’ is a collection of 30 of the best 5 minute plays that were created and performed by Palestinian young people as part of the 2019 Hands Up Project playwriting competition. It contains a foreword by the British poet and playwright Benjamin Zephaniah, a preface by Rida Thabet (HUP advisory board member in Gaza) and a general introduction by Nick Bilbrough.

The plays are organised into four chapters based on the United Nations Rights of the Child; The Right to Survival,The Right to Protection, The Right to Participation and The Right to Development, and are suitable to be read and/or performed by learners of English anywhere in the world. Each play includes a youtube link with a video of the performance by the actors. There are also notes from the teacher about how each play was made and how the learners benefitted from the experience. The books have already been donated to each of the 150 Palestinian children who have a play published in it.

The cast of ‘Tell me why” receiving their books in an UNRWA school in Gaza

To buy a signed copy of either book if you are in the UK please arrange a bank transfer for £9.95 per copy plus £2.00 to cover postage and packing using the following details and your name as a reference:-

Account number: 00029718

Sort Code: 405240

Please send us an email at info@handsupproject.org once you have done this to provide the address to post the book to.

To buy a copy if you are outside the UK please make a payment via Paypal using email address info@handsupproject.org for £9.95 per copy plus £5.00 to cover postage and packing. Please provide the postal address when you make the payment.

All proceeds from sales go towards supporting more young people in Palestine to get involved in creating and performing plays and taking part in drama activities.